ADDRESS. 17 



power was respected in the east and extending in the west, made 

 many contributions to geographical knowledge in the construction 

 of numerous charts, characterized by great accuracy. Indeed, to 

 give a history of discovery is to sketch a living picture of the 

 universe, the great outlines of which have been progressively 

 drawn, and many advances made in filling up and imparting the 

 lights and shades to the picture. 



The Italians and Portuguese, equally adventurous, but far bet- 

 ter informed, ventured boldly upon the high seas, and made many 

 important discoveries. The Danes and Norwegians, undeterred 

 by the cheerless aspect of the Arctic regions, pushed into the 

 north, and planted colonies upon the ice-girt shores of Greenland. 

 On every side the barriers of prejudice were trodden down. The 

 temperate zones were no longer deemed the only habitable por- 

 tion of the globe. The torrid zone, instead of enclosing sandy 

 deserts, scorched up by the intolerable heat of a vertical sun, was 

 found to teem with organic life, and to possess a population even 

 more dense than that of the temperate zones, together with a soil 

 equally well adapted to the support of animal and vegetable life. 



The frigid zones were no longer begirt with perpetual snows, 

 where nature, as if to amuse herself in the loneliness of her soli- 

 tude, exhibited the wildest and most fantastic forms. Navigators 

 advanced toward the north, and found that during the partial sum- 

 mer, plants grew, flowers bloomed, and that human beings made 

 it their permanent residence and home throughout the year. 



For a long time, however, after Galileo had taught the sublime 

 doctrine that the earth was not an immense plain, bounded by the 

 horizon, which itself was inclosed by some impassable barrier; 

 and that the eighty millions of fixed stars which are visible through 

 a good telescope, were centres of other systems, and not mere 

 ignes fatui, created from inflammable vapours, lighted up each 

 night by the hands of some kind deity; yes, for a long time 

 subsequent to this discovery, the knowledge of the most enlight- 



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